Regarding food and local sourcing, etc. I wonder how people feel about
the fanfare regarding making trade "fairer" by dispensing with
agricultural subsidies so that African farmers can sell their produce at
fairly competitive rates, earn foreign currency and thus begin to make a
decent livelihood. It could be claimed that thus they even begin to make
an impact on their respective national debts, and challenge the begging
bowl syndrome that the tear-shedding, heart-bleeding generosity of the
Bono-Brown-Geldof charity-rocks-poverty wreaks upon them. And us. (This
is not to accept the consequences of farmers growing cash crops for
foreign consumption as opposed to those that are apt for local needs
either. But, given the premise of "fair trade" the question does need to
be begged, I think.)
In short, we are advocating some change of rules for us to play by, and
the net has been cast far and wide to support the infrastructure of our
daily lives. Since the Crisis Forum likes to extrapolate on the
accumulation of causal knock-ons in order to rectify and steer our wayward
thoughts in more responsible ways, I wonder what others think about this.
Sri
On Thu, 21 Jul 2005, Jonathan Ward wrote:
> i couldn't agree more re:sourcing food locally.
>
> britain's roads are being pounded by food distribution lorries. they are
> reponsible for around 75% of HGV traffic (and again emissions). in addition
> there is the impact of flying items such as asparagus out to kenya to be
> packaged and combined with mangetout before being flown back to the
> supermarkets..... it really doesn't make any sense.
>
> people need re-edcuating on when seasons are and what is produced within
> their own country and what they can produce themselves. i try to avoid
> supermakrets at all costs and have taken to chopping out imported veg, but
> it takes a while to get used to it, both in terms of what is available and
> the true costs involved.
>
> the food debate is becoming more prominent within the uk, but is largely
> borne out of people's concerns with the quality of their food, the plight of
> farmers and the extraordinary power of supermarkets. if we could add climate
> change to that, there might be considerable momentum.
>
> regards,
>
> Jonathan
>
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